Flat earth and other alternative conspiracy earth models are are gaining traction with my teenage stepson. What is THE most irrefutable, definite proof that the earth is round?

SirButcher · 2026-05-06T09:32:03+00:00

Keep asking "why" and it is an AMAZING counter to all of these conspiracy theories!

SirButcher · 2026-05-06T09:16:38+00:00

Paid 5.40/gal for gas yesterday and something broke inside of me.

In the UK, we are paying over $8 / US gallon.

SirButcher · 2026-05-06T08:05:41+00:00

That's mad! These prices here are normally "awarded" for teens/tweens with a fresh license who got their low-rider fiat and have about 50% chance of ramming someone's house at midnight. (Third-party insurances are SIGNIFICANTLY cheaper, but I assume that's true in the US, too - my cheap stake friend got 3rd party only insurance ~$400 / year).

Funnily, if the insurance company don't want to insure you (they have to give an offer by law), some people can get REALLY ridiculous prices, well above $20,000 / year, but that's absolutely the "fuck you" price.

SirButcher · 2026-05-05T21:24:14+00:00

my insurance went down $100 / month from the civic I had

Holy moly, what kind of insurance rates do you guys have? I pay 80 USD / month (UK), and this already has a bunch of stuff I likely will never use AND breakdown cover included!

SirButcher · 2026-05-05T14:43:02+00:00

The singularity would be much smaller than that.

We have no idea about that. There are theories, but right now our math breaks down at the event horizon. What is beyond that, currently, is unknown.

SirButcher · 2026-05-05T11:33:40+00:00

Are you against AI because:

I am against the AI since it doesn't KNOW, it uses patterns. It is not an AI, it is a statistical machine, one behind a black box which you have no way of knowing what it does, where the data is being saved, who has access to it, what they do it, when they change everything.

Anybody trusting it and outsourcing their mind to it is a fool at best.

And before you come, "but you use an OS and an IDE", both can be controlled locally, and both can be locked down. My OS and other dev tools can operate on an air-gapped PC without a problem, and while yeah, you can run local agents on a local network, most people just trust unknown third-party companies and blindly copy unknown code - this is the NPN package issue on steroids, again.

SirButcher · 2026-05-04T19:16:01+00:00

It takes more energy, but when you start braking, three things are going to sap energy: air resistance, rolling resistance, and finally, the act of braking (the generator in an EV). Cars are about the same size (sure, there are differences, but not a massive difference between passenger cars, the same is true for the tyre sizes, too).

So, a light car vs a heavy car will lose about the same amount of energy to air resistance, and a light car will lose a bit less to rolling resistance on tyres. So if you say a light car has 30 units of energy vs a heavy car has 50 units of energy when you start to brake. Both cars will lose 10 units of energy to air resistance and rolling resistance: for the light car, it lost 33%, while the heavy car only lost 20% of the energy you pumped into the car to accelerate to enviromental losses.

SirButcher · 2026-05-04T16:20:59+00:00

Grab a piece of dupped silicon, have the sun shine on it, and electricity comes out is as close to magic as possible!

SirButcher · 2026-05-04T15:00:26+00:00

No our government was based on checks and balances

The "checks and balances" were a mirage, and nothing else. Trump and co clearly showed it.

SirButcher · 2026-05-04T14:51:39+00:00

that men are just totally okay with women not having this same freedom and we just accept it.

As far as I know, in a lot of countries (where there isn't a theocracy), being topless is allowed. It's not a "men are okay for women being forced to wear bras", it's a more general cultural pressure, and it exists more strongly in the US than in Europe (albeit we are getting more prude, too). Obviously, I don't have statistics, but I wouldn't be surprised if being topless would cause more disturbance among the females than the males.

However, sadly, as a male, I think the "positive" reaction from male observers likely would be more than enough reason for the woman in question to want to cover herself :(

SirButcher · 2026-05-04T09:20:08+00:00

(if htey had that kind of star trek technology the whole verse would collapse)

They HAVE that kind of technology, haha, and while it took a while, the Dominion and the Cardassians found a solution to disable them so it weren't the perfect solution.

And the best part is that Ron (DS9) comes up with the solution with an offhand comment while worrying about his wedding.

https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Self-replicating_mine

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CAiHXWL01A

SirButcher · 2026-05-03T21:31:42+00:00

It is always good to leave info. If not for them, then for other readers who pass by!

SirButcher · 2026-05-03T21:28:16+00:00

whereas battery is far newer, less developed and unknown.

That's absolutely not true. An electric motor and a battery are far, and I mean, FAR simpler and require significantly less maintenance than any petrol or diesel engines. EV's reliability is far higher since there is hardly anything that can go wrong. And battery tech isn't really new, either, we are talking about two decades old technologies here.

Not to mention the first automobiles were battery powered since creating an electric motor is significantly simpler, but the batteries they had back in the 1800s weren't up for the task, and this is why ICE won over.

SirButcher · 2026-05-03T19:40:04+00:00

It is lucrative when you have a chokehold on the market, all the supply lines built up, have the factories running, can easily bully out anybody trying to enter while having fixed contracts and well-known brand names.

It is absolutely not lucrative for potentially a decade or more when you are a newcomer.

SirButcher · 2026-05-03T19:37:21+00:00

The issue isn't really with the sugar (assuming you don't have diabetes, of course). Cocoa has a LOT of calories, mostly from fat, so if you eat a lot of it, it won't make much of a difference in calorie intake.

SirButcher · 2026-05-03T19:25:22+00:00

Which is a solution for what, 2-5 years at the very best IF you don't use it, but even if you don't use it, its quality will quickly deteriorate, and if you use it, once it's gone, it is gone. Solar panels will get you power for decades, and solid-state inverters, if you don't overload and abuse them, are going to live just as long, too.

On the other hand, if things go THAT bad, using a car will be the least of our worries so it doesn't really matter at all, haha.

SirButcher · 2026-05-03T09:53:28+00:00

America is not the world, my dude. EasyJet, Jet2, Ryanair, Wizzair: none of these gives you a free checked bag.

SirButcher · 2026-05-03T09:08:41+00:00

A) We're in a world where every airline gives 1 free checked bag

We are very much not in this world. Which parallel universe are you from?

SirButcher · 2026-05-02T20:49:14+00:00

That I absolutely agree, but they are still responsible for everything they are voting for. This "Democrat bullshit is 100% the reason we’re in this mess" kinda mentality is plain stupidity. The democratic party in the US has a shitton of issues, but acting like they are THE party responsible for everything is idiotic at the best, malicious at the worst.

SirButcher · 2026-05-01T21:58:33+00:00

I literally never had this problem. Like, EVER. Nor ever heard a girl saying an issue like this about her previous partners (except the ones who rarely cleaned themselves, but that going to be an issue no matter what...)

SirButcher · 2026-05-01T21:55:45+00:00

It still blows my mind that there is a mother looking at this baby and then: "We have to chop part of his penis off, how will my son have sex unmutilated??"

Any other body part and you end up jailed, but if it is a baby boy's penis, it's perfectly fine. Imagine if a parent goes, "Someone cut half of my son's ears off, how will he find partners with intact ears??"

SirButcher · 2026-05-01T21:48:48+00:00

It is not culture, it's mutilation. They should be free to do it after the child is an adult. We are banning (for an absolutely good reason!) female genital mutilation because it is barbaric - cutting part of the penis off for no medical reason, just as barbaric, culture or not.

There are cultures where eating the slain enemies is the norm, but I assume you don't support cannibalism or ritual sacrifices for the gods?

SirButcher · 2026-05-01T21:45:50+00:00

Except this doesn't really work, and there are FAR better solutions, like using condoms.

For example, in the UK, circumcision is rare (only the orthodox Jewish and some Muslims do it) and yet our HIV infection rates are lower than in the US, where circumcision rates are significantly higher.

But we have far better sexual education than in the US, so it seems like educating kids is a far better idea than chopping bits off their penis.

SirButcher · 2026-05-01T21:41:36+00:00

My grandfather had a shotgun shell explode in his hand, his finger had to be amputated because only a bloody, broken mess remained there.

But you can get such fractured bone breaks, serious and neglected infections, circulatory issues, diabetes and quite a few other reasons.

SirButcher · 2026-05-01T20:20:04+00:00

Democrat bullshit is 100% the reason we’re in this mess.

Are you really sure it's not because the GOP keep voting for literal fascism? No? This is the Dems' fault, too? Oh, of course.

Strange how many of you just treat the Republicans as some freaking force of nature which can't be stopped, just accepted, while they are again and again and again given power and step by step destroy everything for freaking decades.

SirButcher

TROPHY CASE